Thursday, April 13, 2006
From AscensionNYC
Maundy Thursday
Psalm 78:14-20, 23-25
Exodus 12:1-14a
1 Corinthians 11:23-32
John 13:1-15
How many of us could live without our stories, whether they are about our family or our place of birth, or some hardship experienced? And how many of these stories elicit difficult questions for us? Why was my family that way, what does it mean to be from the place where I was born or how did I learn to live with that experience?
The Torah scholar, Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, suggests that the event of the Passover in Exodus happened so that the Jewish people would have a story to retell (see verse 14, "This day shall be a day of remembrance for you") and not the other way around (i.e., they have a story to tell because of the events that occurred). And it is a terribly disturbing story, full of fear of Egypt and fear of God. And yet it is this story with all its complexity that Israel is instructed to remember, to celebrate and to make of a perpetual ordinance. And Jewish ritual around these events to this very day includes the provoking of questions. "Why the bitter herbs on the Seder table? "They are symbolic of the bitterness of slavery." Or the wonderful, "Why is this night different than all other nights?" It is a reminder to us that Scripture is not just given as some sort of rulebook providing us with readymade answers, but is full of immense and often disturbing stories of people's experience with God.
Paul's letter to the Corinthians gives us one of the earliest accounts of the Last Supper. And verses 27-32 provide a slightly unsettling coda to this account, e.g., "For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves." If you read it quickly, you don't quite know whose "body" Paul is talking about. Are we supposed to discern the "body of Christ" present in the Eucharist? Or are we to discern our "own bodies" and how we make use of them? Or is it more a question of knowing our (un-)worthiness to receive the body of Christ? And how exactly does communion become a "judgment against oneself"? These are demanding questions not only for those to whom Paul was writing, but also for us who read it today.
In the passage from the Gospel of John, we are given the wonderfully intimate story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. And after Jesus has acted, he asks them a question: "Do you know what I have done to you?" This is such a seemingly innocent but also frightening question. I still wonder if we, like Peter, do not know what Jesus was doing in this story. And yet, hundreds of years later, we continue to reenact these very things -- washing of the feet, celebrating the breaking of bread -- precisely because Jesus asks this of us: "For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you." And as with a friend or lover, the asking is reason enough.
Exodus 12:1-14a
1 Corinthians 11:23-32
John 13:1-15
How many of us could live without our stories, whether they are about our family or our place of birth, or some hardship experienced? And how many of these stories elicit difficult questions for us? Why was my family that way, what does it mean to be from the place where I was born or how did I learn to live with that experience?
The Torah scholar, Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, suggests that the event of the Passover in Exodus happened so that the Jewish people would have a story to retell (see verse 14, "This day shall be a day of remembrance for you") and not the other way around (i.e., they have a story to tell because of the events that occurred). And it is a terribly disturbing story, full of fear of Egypt and fear of God. And yet it is this story with all its complexity that Israel is instructed to remember, to celebrate and to make of a perpetual ordinance. And Jewish ritual around these events to this very day includes the provoking of questions. "Why the bitter herbs on the Seder table? "They are symbolic of the bitterness of slavery." Or the wonderful, "Why is this night different than all other nights?" It is a reminder to us that Scripture is not just given as some sort of rulebook providing us with readymade answers, but is full of immense and often disturbing stories of people's experience with God.
Paul's letter to the Corinthians gives us one of the earliest accounts of the Last Supper. And verses 27-32 provide a slightly unsettling coda to this account, e.g., "For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves." If you read it quickly, you don't quite know whose "body" Paul is talking about. Are we supposed to discern the "body of Christ" present in the Eucharist? Or are we to discern our "own bodies" and how we make use of them? Or is it more a question of knowing our (un-)worthiness to receive the body of Christ? And how exactly does communion become a "judgment against oneself"? These are demanding questions not only for those to whom Paul was writing, but also for us who read it today.
In the passage from the Gospel of John, we are given the wonderfully intimate story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. And after Jesus has acted, he asks them a question: "Do you know what I have done to you?" This is such a seemingly innocent but also frightening question. I still wonder if we, like Peter, do not know what Jesus was doing in this story. And yet, hundreds of years later, we continue to reenact these very things -- washing of the feet, celebrating the breaking of bread -- precisely because Jesus asks this of us: "For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you." And as with a friend or lover, the asking is reason enough.
Stephen Hagerty
